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Wisconsin · Private foundation

Z Foundation Trust

Its FY2025 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$223k
Granted FY2025(still arriving)
7
Grants FY2025
8
Organizations funded FY2024
25%
First-time grantees FY2024
Read the full brief
Median grant, FY2025
$12,500
Largest grant, FY2025
$138,000
Organizations funded a year
2 to 9
FY2019 to FY2024
States reached, FY2025
2
Total assets, FY2025
$4.9M
Applications
Preselected organizations only
Per its most recent filing; check its own site

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2024, 25% of the organizations Z Foundation Trust funded were first-time grantees, receiving 9% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $12k went to new ones.

50%100%’20’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’20’21’22’23’24
EducationHealthHousing & ShelterHuman ServicesOther
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as new. Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
The numbers by year
Fiscal yearOrganizations fundedTo those organizationsFirst-time grantees
FY2025still arriving7$223k43%
FY20248$141k25%
FY20237$120k14%
FY20228$123k50%
FY20219$123k67%
FY20207$123k86%
FY20192$82kn/a
90% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2019 to 2025.

Religion$306kHealth$133kHuman Services$73kEducation$31kYouth Development$29kRecreation & Sports$22kOther$0

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2019 to FY2025, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

Plus 15 recipients with no EIN on record ($790k), not named here.

Where it is load-bearing

Each grantee by its size and the share of its budget Z Foundation Trust supplied at peak.

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetGift of Life Inc: $42,375 over 4y, 0.7% of budgetBolder Options: $29,250 over 5y, 0.7% of budgetTee It Up for the Troops Inc: $23,500 over 3y, 0.2% of budgetReach Out and Read Minnesota: $20,000 over 3y, 3.1% of budgetRonald McDonald House Charities Midwest Mn Wi Ia: $10,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetJeremiah Program: $6,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetNext 18 Inc: $6,000 over 1y, 1.4% of budgetSt Olaf College: $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetUniversity of Wisconsin Foundation: $2,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budget

Tap a dot to name the grantee.

How this is measured
Share of budget is the funder’s grant in a year over the grantee’s total revenue that year, at its highest across the years we hold; revenue is from all sources. Only grantees confirmed against their own filings, whose grants do not exceed their revenue, are plotted: the largest 9.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Mightycause Charitable FoundationFL14.5× affinity5 shared granteesties to 9 of 9Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Mightycause Charitable Foundation · Otto Bremer Trust · Xcel Energy Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Charities Aid Foundation America · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

Compare Z Foundation Trust with peer funders

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Z Foundation Trust?

Find your warmest path to Z Foundation Trust through trustees and officers whose names appear on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the shortest route it can evidence.

Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.

About Z Foundation Trust

How much does Z Foundation Trust give?
Z Foundation Trust reported 7 grants totaling $223,000 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 2 and 9 organizations a year over FY2019 to FY2024.
What does Z Foundation Trust fund?
By grant dollars over FY2019 to FY2025, its largest causes are Religion (33%), Health (14%), Human Services (8%).
Who are Z Foundation Trust's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2019 to FY2025: Gift of Life Inc ($42k), Bolder Options ($29k), Tee It Up for the Troops Inc ($24k).
Does Z Foundation Trust fund new organizations?
In FY2024, 25% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Does Z Foundation Trust accept unsolicited applications?
Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Which funders back the same organizations as Z Foundation Trust?
Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Mightycause Charitable Foundation, Otto Bremer Trust, Xcel Energy Foundation.
Where is Z Foundation Trust based?
Z Foundation Trust is based in WI.

On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 24 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

How this is measured
Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

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